DTG : Design, Typography & Graphics for May 2014

by Fred Showker

MAY 2014 ... Mother's Day, design graduates get a fresh start... graphic designers, web designers, illustrators, typographers, digital artists and everyone in the creative fields -- May Colors : What's in YOUR palette! May is brought to you by the color PURPLE ... because it means royalty, and is a frequent color for sashes at Graduation. Keep reading and enjoy your May

Photoshop Madness : Tutorials and more for color, palettes, brushes and more

Happy Mother's Day . . . happy tutorial hunting! Give her a little color ... or create a colorful Photoshop experience! Lots of spam and craziness out there so be careful. For this issue we decided to play it clean and get you some cool stuff! So here goes: * Adobe Photoshop - Color Swatches and Color Libraries tutorial * Pastel Feather Studio created by Monika Dudikeni. * Kara’s Quick-Knit Tip: Color Palette Generator * Julie Hamilton is Artistically Afflicted * Color Palette Generator. . . and MORE Photoshop Madness : Tutorials and more for color, palettes, brushes and more

Moving into spring, the colors are coming out, and our friend Ainsley Bevis from BloomWebDesign.net is on a roll with this great Adobe Illustrator -plus- Photoshop tutorial! You'll enjoy some tricks for illustrating the shapes of a waving flag with stripes, and then the whole piece drops into Photoshop for shadows and highlights, and finishing! Tutorial: Create a Colorful Ribbon Flag in Adobe Illustrator + Photoshop

21 awesome illustration insights for Spring & Play from the Richard Solomon Agency

There is a big difference between good illustration and great illustration. For an illustration to achieve the highest level of communication it must first evoke a mood, then tell a story, and finally leave a lasting message. All of these illustrations achieve that goal. We're truly inspired that Richard Solomon has given us permission to spotlight these illustrators in the Design Center Gallery. The Richard Solomon Artists Representative firm has been around for more than 20 years, and has gathered the best visual talent in the world! So, sit back and enjoy the slide show of spectacular illustrations for spring! 21 awesome illustration insights for Spring & Play from the Richard Solomon Agency

60 Seconds #311: A Font called Pinto makes a great Happy Easter Card

I got this post to the web site today and had to pass it along. Georg Herold-Wildfellner logged into the Design Center from Vienna Austria and used our contact link to say Happy Easter Graphic-Design! He sent an EASTER card to introduce his new font called * PINTO * ... nice idea, fun font, an email marketing campaign gone RIGHT! 60 Seconds #311: A Font called Pinto makes a great Happy Easter Card

Earth Day Art, Crafts, Education for creatives of all ages

Although Earth Day is over, we had some good reference material for this perfect opportunity to make a good contact with clients and vendors. Dreaming up promotions can be difficult -- but if you consider kid's stuff, there are tons of ideas out there. So let's take a look at our favorite Earth Day arts, crafts and projects for kids -- and you're bound to come up with lots of great designs for yourself:[*] Backyard Homesteading: A Back-to-Basics Guide to Self-Sufficiency[*] Outside the Box!: Creative Activities for Ecology-Minded Kids[*] BOOST Earth Day Is Every Day! Activity Book[*] Creative Haven NatureScapes Coloring Book[*] National Parks Coloring Book[*] Eco-Logical Brain Games Earth Day Art, Crafts, Education for creatives of all ages

We're enjoying jumping into April, and with it comes some fresh creative inspiration. This edition has * 6 Attention-Grabbing Direct Mail Designs for those who thought that direct mail was dead * A wonderful interview with Jon Sueda -- not to be missed, and * revisiting the "selfie" and Ellen's now famous Oscar selfie! It's all fun, and you're invited to join us!Creative Tidbits #168: Direct Mail Brilliance, Ellen's Selfies and Jon Sueda

If you are a designer or visual communicator in business, then you need to keep up. In this issue we hope to help with * a brilliant infographic which illustrates Shutterstock’s 2014 Global Design Trends, * our friend David Blatner's quick and easy way to test font choices quickly in InDesign CC, and * some musings on the proper punctuation marks from Kathryn SchulzIt's all fun, and you're invited to join us! Creative Tidbits #169: Proper punctuation, testing fonts in ID, and Global Design Trends

Learning from others is always an effective way to jump-start our creative juices. But the web is raft with images that give inspiration with little or no real substance. It's always a thrill to hear from the legends who truly leave a mark on the graphic design profession. So, today's edition is "Famous legends Day" and here are three you'll enjoy: * Ed Benguiat shares some of his stories in a wonderful Vimeo, and * we get a brief glimpse into the talent of Alexander Isley, AIGA Medal winner ... and speaking of typography, designer, writer and typographer * Michael Bierut shows us Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Typeface! It's all fun, and you're invited to join us!Creative TidBits #170: Designers Ed Benguiat, Alexander Isley and Michael Bierut

A good graphic designer can design anything. It's really not about the software or the tools or this or that publication. It's really the art and skill of cutting through all the noise to find the essence of the subject -- and then being able to organize the best representations of that subject into a singular message. So it's true of type, typography and graphics like icons and even huge, monumental spaces. Thus this edition brings you * An introduction to the principles of typography through letterpress, and * selectively choosing the right icons, then * Designing Exhibition graphics!It's all fun, and you're invited to join us! Creative TidBits #171: Design with Type, design icons, and exhibition graphics

Let's start fine-tuning our efforts, and learn more so we can be more effective for our clients! Last week got us off to a good start into the spring market push, let's continue on that path! Let's take a look at this week's marketing update :[*] Seven Trends Changing the Ways Brands Market to Consumers[*] Rebranding without losing your hard-earned rankings[*] Infographic: Digital Marketing Budgets Getting a Boost[*] Roadblocks to Epic Customer Experiences: Marketers[*] Four Rules for Telling an Effective Video Story[*] How to craft the perfect email subject line[*] Make your brand more relatableand more!Marketing: Changing Trends, Rebranding, Marketing Budgets, Effective Video and the perfect email subject line

Springtime usually marks the beginning of many marketing and PR campaigns -- it's the biggest time of year for launching promos, second only to the holidays! Let's take a look at this week's marketing update :[*] 10 Simple Twitter Tactics That Will Get You More Traffic Today[*] Marketing Lessons From March Madness: Go Deep Young Team![*] 3 ways to sabotage your PR pitch (and 3 tips to save it)[*] Get more links from every piece of content you produce[*] The Most Commonly Used Email Marketing Tactics[*] Your Five-Point Mobile Marketing Checklist[*] The 25 Most Powerful Corporate Brands[*] 6 key advertising platforms for 2017?and more! Marketing: March Madness, Spring promos, looking ahead to the future, Twitter tactics

Clone yourself ... double billable time

Bill Bernbach once told me "never do anything yourself, that you can hire someone to do for you -- especially if they can do it better!" I lived by that rule in my business -- graphic design and photography practitioners should too. You can stay busy on design and important high value work while letting less grunt work photo retouching and photo touch up get done by outsourcing. You buy professional retouching as low as 30 ¢ per photo, marked up to your rates and you've got two profit centers on the job at the same time! Clone yourself ... double billable time

&Else : News, Views & Reviews

Our news, views and reviews department has some interesting items for you this month, and you can see them all ... along with &Else: [*] LinkOptimizer for Adobe InDesign Improves Transparency Handling in TIFF[*] Full resolution photo editor -- Tint Mint for iOS[*] Layrs Multilayer Photo Editing App -- the first truly multilayer photo editing application for the iPhone[*] Export And Overlay App Screenshots Easily With DS Screenshot 1.4 for iOS and more at : www.graphic-design.com/news/

Ramping up for May and Mother's Day -- a huge opportunity to lock in client loyalty! Don't forget to send in your Mother's Day promos! Let's take a look at this week's marketing update :[*] Take Advantage of the Biggest Mobile Trends in 2014 to Engage Your Audience[*] Understand How Buyers Buy: Marketing With the 'Buying Center' Concept[*] Facebook pulls the rug on business: We will return the favor soon[*] How to target communications to conference attendees[*] Eight Secrets of Success With LinkedIn PPC Ads[*] RFP for Ad Sales? Not Necessarily a Good Idea[*] Making Sense of Data: What Marketers Can Do[*] The 16 best lines in marketingand more!

Brought to you by the Color Purple and the Letter M

May is believed to have been named for the Greek goddess Maia, who was identified with the Roman era goddess of fertility -- what a great reason for Mother's Day -- the second Sunday in May. Don't forget to call your Mom!

June opens Design Summer and we'll take those digital cameras out for a spin. It's looking like a good summer on the way for graphic designers! With fuel prices what they are, graphic designers will want to stay close to home. What a perfect opportunity to really explore near-by visions with your digital canvas or camera. Don't forget to send a photo that embraces the spirit of JUNE, and you could WIN a digital photography book as our 'thank you' ...

For now, have a great time in the May DTG

Once again you've wasted a perfectly good hour reading the DTG newsletter. Hopefully all is not wasted and you've gained at least one helpful tidbit of info

DTG(TM) and 60-Second Windows(TM) have been published continuously online since 1988. The Design & Publishing Center is a Spam-Free web site and welcomes your articles, comments and contributions. Graphic-Design.com and The Design & Publishing Center is a wholly owned subsidiary of Showker, Inc., TA. Showker Graphic Arts & Design, and is located in Harrisonburg, Virginia; in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, USA, established in 1972. 540-433-8402.